


The Secrets They've Kept

by whovianmuse



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 05:38:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whovianmuse/pseuds/whovianmuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Prequel:</b> <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/500078">The Doctor's Ganger</a></p>
<p>
  <i>It’s been weeks, and still, Amy wakes from the same dream. Sweat clings to her forehead as she bolts up in bed. She can’t shake the memory of him, of everything she’d done with the mere echo of a man she trusted completely.</i>
</p>
<p>Written for a prompt on Eleventy_Kink (LiveJournal)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secrets They've Kept

            It’s been weeks, and still, Amy wakes from the same dream. Sweat clings to her forehead as she bolts up in bed. She can’t shake the memory of him, of everything she’d done with the mere echo of a man she trusted completely. Of his cold hands searching her body. Of his rough, unpleasant movements against her skin. Of his curious lips exploring her neck, brushing against hers. And she can’t convince herself that it wasn’t real, because it was entirely her fault.

            Rory is fast asleep beside her, wrapped up comfortably between the sheets and perfectly content. For a moment, she’s sick with envy. Rory is loyal. Magnificently wonderful. He’d waited for her. For two thousand years, he’d waited for her, and she’d betrayed him. Rory loved her completely. He was never tempted. _Except…_ Amy squeezes her eyes shut, fighting the urge to cry out as memories weave in and out of her mind, taking terrible shape.

            She remembers standing there, alone, against the cold, stone wall, watching him leave her without a second thought. She remembers shaking, running desperately after the Doctor’s Ganger, and crashing instead into Rory’s arms. Rory hadn’t ever questioned why she was clutching her clothes in her arms, silently sobbing into the dark. Instead, he had helped her dress, caressing her shoulders and running his hands through her hair and kissing her until she’d calmed down. Of course he’d never choose Jennifer’s Ganger over her. He loved her. How stupid and careless she’d been, how much she’d taken him for granted…

            Amy suppresses a sob as it rises in her throat, and kisses her husband’s cheek softly, lifting up beside him and slipping out of bed, careful not to wake him. She needs a distraction. Something, _anything_ that will take her mind off of it. Slowly, she slips out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her, and closes her eyes, exhaling softly.

            A small string of lights illuminate the corridor as she walks along, gliding her fingertips along the smooth, polished metal of the wall. She isn’t certain of her destination, nor does she contemplate coordinates or a set direction, but simply trusts that she won’t become lost. She finds her way into the console room quicker than she’d imagined, and fights the urge to turn back. The TARDIS is cleverer than she thought. She knows exactly where Amy needs to go, and where she has feared going for weeks now.

            Amy coughs once, small and unobtrusive, and the Doctor swivels on the spot. In mere seconds, his expressions change from delighted surprise to unendurable sorrow with a tiny indication of his lips. Amy catches it, even though he’s tried not to let her see it. The both of them stand on opposite sides of the console in an uncomfortable silence that speaks volumes more than either of them could say. Suddenly, the Doctor clears his throat, nods once, and turns to leave down an opposing corridor.

            “Doctor, please. Don’t go.”

The words slip from her mouth before she can swallow them, and he’s turning back, striding toward her with the same mingled expressions, and in seconds, he’s standing right in front of her, towering over her, emotion absent from his lips, but certainly not from his eyes.

             He’s worried about her, and she can’t ever let him know why.

            “Pond,” he nearly whispers, his fingers twitching with the need to brush back a loose curl, to trace the freckled constellations on her perfect face, but they stay at his sides, fumbling occasionally with the hem of his jacket. All it takes is the sound of his voice, the sound of her name, not merely falling off the tip of his tongue, but cherished in the back of his throat, like he’s been longing to tell her all this time. Amy’s reserve melts as he reaches forward, slowly, carefully, and cups her face in his hands, softly tracing circles along her cheeks with his thumbs.

            “Doctor,” she whispers. The words tangle in her throat as she struggles to make sense of them, encrypting them carefully. “If someone you were close to…if you knew this big, terrible secret about them, would you tell them? Even if you know you shouldn’t, because it would make everything complicated and dangerous…would you tell them?”

            The Doctor tilts his head to the side, his mind whirring at a thousand beats per second, every thought centering on the woman in front of him. He moves his hands from her cheek, but Amy grasps them, holding them gently in hers, and pulls them away from her face, so that they hover a few inches in between both of their chests. She feels the beat of his hearts, his vibrations and his heat emanating from his skin, inches from her own, and she wonders, for a moment, why she shouldn’t just tell him everything.

_Because I can never tell you. Because it’s a paradox. Because I watched you die. Because I held on to you, hoping you’d come back to me. Because my life didn’t make sense before I met you. Because I fell in love with you first. Because I waited for you. For fourteen years, I waited for you. Because Rory waited longer for me. Because I love both you and Rory. Because I thought that Rory had left me, because your Ganger had convinced me so. Because I pretended that your Ganger was you. Because I wanted to see what it was like to touch you. Because I know that it could never be more than this. Because I know you better than you know yourself. Because you’re my best friend, and all of this is my fault._

            Amy sighs and shakes her head, breathing in slowly, calculatedly. A traitorous tear slides down her cheek, and the Doctor frowns, catching it at the edge of her chin and wiping it away. He pulls her into him, feeling her miraculous heart beat against his as the unsteady rhythms slow to match one another. He places a soft little kiss on the side of her neck, and forces a smile as he breathes in the familiar, comforting scent of his almost-Amelia Pond.

            “Oh, Amy,” he whispers against her, “if only I could.”

            Amy opens her mouth to question him, but decides against it. She trusts him, and if she needed to know what it meant, he would tell her. The two of them simply stand there, frozen for the moment, locked in embrace. She winds her arms around him and holds him close to her, reveling in his touch, his friendship, his loyalty, and his affection for her.

            The Doctor sighs, holding back a sob as he hugs her, running his hands along her back, grasping her close like he’s afraid she’ll twist into smoke if he lets her go. He battles with his conscience, but comes to the same conclusion to the complication he’s been struggling with these past few weeks: he should have disabled the connection between Amy and her Ganger, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to do so. This version isn’t his Amelia, but how could he ever bring himself to tell her that she isn’t real? All he knows, for now, is that he’s coming for her. Whatever happens, wherever she is, however far, however hard, he will find her, and he will stop at nothing until she’s safely back in his arms.


End file.
